#DEGREE SYMBOL MICROSOFT WORD SOFTWARE#
#DEGREE SYMBOL MICROSOFT WORD TV#

#DEGREE SYMBOL MICROSOFT WORD SOFTWARE#

Within a few years, the software would become the most widely used business program for the personal computer to date. “If only I had an electronic spreadsheet.” Bricklin and his business partner, Bob Frankston, would release VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software for the personal computer, in 1979. “If only I had a magic piece of paper where I could change a number at the beginning of a set of calculations, and have all of the other numbers automatically recompute themselves …,” he recounted in a course paper. In 1978, while completing assignments at Harvard Business School, MBA student Dan Bricklin recognized the potential for streamlining these calculation inefficiencies using the personal computer. Though the practice of maintaining bookkeeping and ledger records dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, physical spreadsheet records have always suffered from the problem of requiring corrections and updates by hand. Welcome to WIRED Software Review, where we publish critiques of the defining cultural artifact of our time. Along with its siblings Word and PowerPoint, Excel is the basis for curriculum material in schools and universities, a topic of academic research (which has concluded the software is “pervasive in businesses of all sizes”), and the subject of a quite simply enormous subreddit: r/excel boasts over 600,000 “spreadsheet warriors.” Somehow, Excel has also become so ubiquitous as to be recognized as a compelling setting for esports.

#DEGREE SYMBOL MICROSOFT WORD TV#

Canonically categorized as “office productivity software,” its spreadsheet interface can be found on desktop monitors throughout commercials and TV shows as a staple of the cubicle. Microsoft Excel-the famed spreadsheet application with number-crunching and graphing capabilities-is the defining software of the white-collar workplace. The event has only continued to grow: ESPNU has since broadcast the collegiate equivalent, and the 2023 version will be aired by the ESPN family and held live in Las Vegas with over $15,000 in prize money to boot. Part of the Financial Modeling World Cup and sponsored by the likes of Microsoft and AG Capital, the event pitted eight Excel wizards against each other to see who could solve tasks most efficiently with table fills and complex formulas under the pressure of a ticking clock. But even by its own standards, the channel had seemingly outdone itself with a half-hour programming slot devoted to the 2022 World Excel Championships. The ESPN family of channels is no stranger to unconventional programming, with events like the Scrabble Players Championship, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, and the World’s Strongest Man Competition. Last summer, ESPN2 offered viewers the opportunity to spectate an event distinctly incongruous with its usual sport offerings and yet yawn-inducingly familiar: spreadsheet calculation.

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